Not so important connections

Robin Goodfellow said:
Speaking of Dunk and Egg stories I noticed during my re-reading of 'A Storm of Swords' it is mentioned in the white book that Barristan the Bold once unhorsed a "Ser Duncan the Tall'. I Found this strange given the timeline but I'm pretty sure it's the same person.

(This may have been mentioned before, I haven't read the whole thread yet.)
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This is wholly possible. Remember, Barristan took to the fields at a very young age. Duncan died when Barristan was 22, according to AWOIAF. If that is the case, then it is not out of the question. :) If the time Barristan unhorsed Duncan, it must have been at the tourney where the Mystery Knight showed up, shortly before his death. The timeline is not an issue here.
 
Ok, here are my findings after first reread. I'll start with a quote that actually shows us Lord Manderly is telling the truth among the lies during his first meeting with Davos:

[FONT=&quot]Lord Wyman shifted in his seat. “As for you, Onion Knight, I have heard sufficient treason for one day. You would have me risk my city for a false king and a false god. You would have me sacrifice my only living son so Stannis Baratheon can plant his puckered arse upon a throne to which he has no right. I will not do it. Not for you. Not for your lord. Not for any man.”[/FONT]
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This part brought tears to my eyes the second time I've read it, because the truth of the matter is: Rickon is not a man, he's a boy!

And then, there's this, which I didn't catch during my first reading:

[FONT=&quot]"The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Something about the way Lord Wyman said that chilled Davos to the bone. [/FONT]
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also

[FONT=&quot]“And now I have a wedding to attend. I am too fat to sit a horse, as any man with eyes can plainly see. As a boy I loved to ride, and as a young man I handled a mount well enough to win some small acclaim in the lists, but those days are done. My body has become a prison more dire than the Wolf’s Den. Even so, I must go to Winterfell. Roose Bolton wants me on my knees, and beneath the velvet courtesy he shows the iron mail. I shall go by barge and litter, attended by a hundred knights and my good friends from the Twins. The Freys came here by sea. They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?”[/FONT]
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I did a quick re-read. Lord Wyman Manderly is intending to die! And he is going to take as many Freys with him as he can. Those horses were only the start of it. And if you read the whole chapter again, here's what Manderly's words come to:

I'm surrounded by enemies of me and my family. I'm weak. In my youth I was strong, but now my body has become my prison. I can't even ride a horse! But now, my son is back and he is stronger than me. My enemies forced me to sell my daughters to their sons and are forcing me to go to a wedding feast, asking for hostages. I'm fat and useless; I can be that hostage.

One of my daughter's future husbands is here (Rhaegar Frey); I can kill him on the way to the wedding. Another husband will be on the wedding (Little Walder, btw); if I kill him as well, the marriage agreement is null and void.
My son is home and they cannot force my hand any more.

And later, Little Valder dies and Abel's girls insist that they didn't kill him. More small connections in the next post.
 
Davos first chapter:

[FONT=&quot]Though there were stranger spices than salt in this sister’s stew. “Is it saffron that I’m tasting?” Saffron was worth more than gold. Davos had only tasted it once before, when King Robert had sent a half a fish to him at a feast on Dragonstone.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Aye. From Qarth. There’s pepper too.” Lord Godric took a pinch between his thumb and forefinger and sprinkled his own trencher. “Cracked black pepper from Volantis, nothing finer. Take as much as you require if you’re feeling peppery. I’ve got forty chests of it. Not to mention cloves and nutmeg, and a pound of saffron. Took it off a sloe-eyed maid.” [/FONT]
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Later, before meeting Manderly, Davos hears the following story:

[FONT=&quot]His fellow drinkers were talking about dragons now. “You’re bloody mad,” said an oarsman off Storm Dancer. “The Beggar King’s been dead for years. Some Dothraki horselord cut his head off.” ...

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Daenerys,” Davos said. “She was named for the Daenerys who wed the Prince of Dorne during the reign of Daeron the Second. I don’t know what became of her.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “I do,” said the man who’d started all the talk of dragons, a Braavosi oarsman in a somber woolen jack. “When we were down to Pentos we moored beside a trader called the Sloe-Eyed Maid, and I got to drinking with her captain’s steward. He told me a pretty tale about some slip of a girl who come aboard in Qarth, to try and book passage back to Westeros for her and three dragons. Silver hair she had, and purple eyes. ‘I took her to the captain my own self,’ this steward swore to me, ‘but he wasn’t having none of that. There’s more profit in cloves and saffron, he tells me, and spices won’t set fire to your sails.’ ”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Laughter swept the cellar. Davos did not join in. He knew what had befallen the Sloe-Eyed Maid. The gods were cruel to let a man sail across half the world, then send him chasing a false light when he was almost home.[/FONT]
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The sailor is indeed telling the truth. Here's a line from ACOK:

“You require passage for a hundred Dothraki, all their horses, yourself and this knight, and three dragons? ” said the captain of the great cog Ardent Friend before he walked away laughing. When she told a Lyseni on the Trumpeteer that she was Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, he gave her a deadface look and said, “Aye, and I’m Lord Tywin Lannister and **** gold every night.” The cargomaster of the Myrish galley Silken Spirit opined that dragons were too dangerous at sea, where any stray breath of flame might set the rigging afire. The owner of Lord Faro’s Belly would risk dragons, but not Dothraki. “I’ll have no such godless savages in my Belly , I’ll not.” The two brothers who captained the sister ships Quicksilver and Greyhound seemed sympathetic and invited them into the cabin for a glass of Arbor red. They were so courteous that Dany was hopeful for a time, but in the end the price they asked was far beyond her means, and might have been beyond Xaro’s. Pinchbottom Petto and [FONT=&quot]Sloe-Eyed Maid[/FONT] were too small for her needs, Bravo was bound for the Jade Sea, and Magister Manolo scarce looked seaworthy.
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There's one more connection that I have found, but that will go into the next post.
 
Ok, this is connection with AFFC. There was much speculation why would Faceless Men need a key that opens all the doors in Citadel. Here's why, the question is answered in ADWD:

[FONT=&quot]Tyrion had read much and more of dragons through the years. The greater part of those accounts were idle tales and could not be relied on, and the books that Illyrio had provided them were not the ones he might have wished for. What he really wanted was the complete text of The Fires of the Freehold, Galendro’s history of Valyria. No complete copy was known to Westeros, however; even the Citadel’s lacked twenty-seven scrolls. They must have a library in Old Volantis, surely. I may find a better copy there, if I can find a way inside the Black Walls to the city’s heart.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] He was less hopeful concerning Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Barth had been a blacksmith’s son who rose to be King’s Hand during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. His enemies always claimed he was more sorcerer than septon. Baelor the Blessed had ordered all Barth’s writings destroyed when he came to the Iron Throne. Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth’s work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.[/FONT]
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The Imp said:
GREAT pickup.
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Thank you! And here's one more:

ASOS, one of Samwell chapters (before the death of Old Bear):

Sam stumbled. “Jon found more, on the Fist. Hundreds of arrowheads, spearheads as well . . .”
“So you said. Small good it does us there. To reach the Fist again we’d need to be armed with the weapons we won’t have until we reach the bloody Fist. And there are still the wildlings to deal with. We need to find dragonglass someplace else.”
Sam had almost forgotten about the wildlings, so much had happened since. “The children of the forest used dragonglass blades,” he said. “They’d know where to find obsidian.”
“The children of the forest are all dead,” said Mormont. “The First Men killed half of them with bronze blades, and the Andals finished the job with iron. Why a glass dagger should—”
The Old Bear broke off as Craster emerged from between the deerhide flaps of his door. The wildling smiled, revealing a mouth of brown rotten teeth. “I have a son.”
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ADWD, Bran's vision:

Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.
“No,” said Bran, “no, don’t,” but they could not hear him, no more than his father had. The woman grabbed the captive by the hair, hooked the sickle round his throat, and slashed. And through the mist of centuries the broken boy could only watch as the man’s feet drummed against the earth … but as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood.
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Is it possible that GRRM is having a joke on his readers' expense?

Gerris laughed. “A pity we have none. Do you trust this peace, Quent? I don’t. Half the city is calling the dragonslayer a hero, and the other half spits blood at the mention of his name.”
“Harzoo,” the big man said.


Quentyn frowned. “His name was Harghaz.”


“Hizdahr, Humzum, Hagnag, what does it matter? I call them all Harzoo. He was no dragonslayer. All he did was get his arse roasted black and crispy.”
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I've got a feeling that GRRM would know that his audience finds most of Daenerys' chapters in ADWD boring and confusing, and is making a little fun of our boredom. It's just a feeling, though :D
 
Another one, and it is a scary one.This one is going all the way to AGOT, first Arya's chapter and second Jon's. Jon's jokes get strangely prophetic:

[FONT=&quot]“The Lannisters are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equal in honor to the king’s.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“The woman is important too!” Arya protested.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Jon chuckled. “Perhaps you should do the same thing, little sister. Wed Tully to Stark in your arms.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“A wolf with a fish in its mouth?” It made her laugh. “That would look silly. Besides, if a girl can’t fight, why should she have a coat of arms?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Jon shrugged. “Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.”[/FONT]
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Then in ASOS, we all know what Nymeria did to Catelyn's body after the Red Wedding, don't we?

And then, there's Jon's second chapter, after he gave Needle to Arya:

[FONT=&quot]“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle. Who knows?” He was feeling better now. He was not going to let himself be sad. “I better go. I’ll spend my first year on the Wall emptying chamber pots if I keep Uncle Ben waiting any longer.”[/FONT]
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Well, the odd thing is, that is exactly what happened to Jon! He became Old Bear's steward and one of the steward's duties is to empty chamber pots! And now comes the freaky and scary thing. Arya's first chapter, the final joke of Jon.

[FONT=&quot]“The show is done,” he said. He bent to scratch Ghost behind the ears. The white wolf rose and rubbed against him. “You had best run back to your room, little sister. Septa Mordane will surely be lurking. The longer you hide, the sterner the penance. You’ll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers.”[/FONT]
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Scary! Your thoughts?
 
If Jon is psychic, I agree - things just got scary for Arya.

But he also said : "Girls get arms but not the swords." - and we know that's already proved wrong.

On the other hand, if we consider sewing to be a metaphor referring to Arya's use of Needle, then maybe she'll be putting that sword of hers to good use in the next book.

If Jon is psychic.
 
Whether Jon is psychic or not, all the conversations you mentioned were brilliant bits of foreshadowing. I'm re-reading the series and am picking those out more and more - it's really amazing. And I bow to your argument - Jon is the one subverting the rules, so it shouldn't count.

I wonder if there are other examples of Jon cracking jokes... There's the time he told Tyrion "Maybe he thought you were a grumkin." - I wonder how we could interpret that in light of this theory, lol. :D

Still - "You'll be sewing all through winter" is awefully ominous, IMO. I can just see the body count rising.
 
Katrina Stark said:
Whether Jon is psychic or not, all the conversations you mentioned were brilliant bits of foreshadowing. I'm re-reading the series and am picking those out more and more - it's really amazing. And I bow to your argument - Jon is the one subverting the rules, so it shouldn't count.

I wonder if there are other examples of Jon cracking jokes... There's the time he told Tyrion "Maybe he thought you were a grumkin." - I wonder how we could interpret that in light of this theory, lol. :D

Still - "You'll be sewing all through winter" is awefully ominous, IMO. I can just see the body count rising.
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Personally, I find the ones before and after that one far worse. Arya has been hiding for a long time...
 
Maybe it's not such a scary thought as her dying in the snow and her body found. None of the otherwise seemed to fit as simply. As they wounded. Maybe it means in her hiding she's basically going to reap what she sews, meaning she's become the assassin she trained to be( as said body count rising) but finding a needle locked in frozen hands/fingers not meaning death but possibly In her finally losing herlsef and becoming cold as a person but not dead like corpse? Personally for me this would make sense if she was meant to be Jons nissa I could see it breaking his heart to see she has become that and having him sacrifice her to kill/free her from being that person. But I love arraya and would hate for her story line to ever end badly. Either way I hope the prediction doesnt happen. Now I wanna really read more of just jobs chapters through the series.....
 
When I read about Arya's frozen fingers, my first thought was Cold Hands. Maybe Arya won't die during the coming winter. Maybe she'll be attacked by The Others and become a sentient wight like Cold Hands. How's that for a crackpot theory?! :D
 
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